As a child in Plainview, Long Island, Amy Spears had a ringside seat for emergencies and life-saving efforts. Her father, Marc Gordon, was a volunteer EMT for 30 years.

“As a kid growing up, we’d be in the car and he’d get a call,” said Spears, a recipient of the UFT’s 2016 Audrey Chasen Award for her contribution to efforts that saved the life of a 6th-grade girl at Louis Armstrong MS in East Elmhurst, Queens.

Spears, her twin sister, younger brother and mom would wait in the car while Gordon ran off to save lives. “If there’s anyone who is proud of me and excited for me, it’s him,” Spears said. For her part, the 21-year veteran math teacher had hoped she would “never, ever have to do this.”

But on Oct. 20, she was in her classroom when three girls ran in, pleading for help.

In the hallway, Spears found the 6th-grader on the floor and nonresponsive.

“I turned her over to see if she was breathing and she was having difficulty,” said Spears, who has two daughters including a 6th-grader.

She sent someone to call 911 and started CPR. It was then that the middle school staff’s teamwork and training kicked in.

Some educators maintained calm in the classrooms. Chasen honoree Michael Lopez ran to get the school’s automated external defibrillator, which is housed two floors away. A colleague was already en route with the device and Lopez helped clear the halls.

Other staff members began converging on the scene. When CPR wasn’t working, they readied the defibrillator. One staff member set it up, one plugged it in and Spears placed the pads on the stricken girl. Someone else started the device. The girl was shocked once and responded immediately.

“This great device analyzed her heart rhythm and suggested the shock,” said Lopez. “I saw life come back to her.”

Sherie Vaio, also a Chasen award-winner, accompanied the student in the ambulance to Elmhurst Hospital Center and stayed with the child until a parent arrived. A paraprofessional for 17 years, Vaio has long volunteered to make emergency runs from the barrier-free school, designed for students with disabilities. “When the doctors and the paramedics see me, they know a child is coming from the school,” she said.

The 6th-grader, who wears a pacemaker, later was transferred to a hospital in Manhattan. She returned to school before Thanksgiving.

The CPR training program at Louis Armstrong MS began almost a decade ago, and participants are retrained every two years. Responders also have drills about four times a year. “We just trained in June,” said Spears, who was grateful that protocol was “a little fresher in my head.”

She added, “I don’t know how I would have lived with” a different outcome.

From the moment Spears found the girl collapsed on the floor until EMS arrived, she didn’t leave her side. But cooperation, she says, was key.

“We all worked together,” she said. “Everybody did something.”